He found the Titanic. Now Robert Ballard hunts the quarry of a lifetime

July 21 issue  Ten thousand years ago, the Black Sea was a freshwater lake in the middle of a vast, low-lying basin. Its fertile valleys and lush pastures would have given Neolithic hunter-gatherers a perfect opportunity to make the leap to a more settled, agricultural society. But then disaster struck.

ABOUT 7,500 YEARS ago the ice age ended, the worlds climate warmed and the seas rose. The Aegean Sea breached a narrow strip of land, where the Strait of Bosporus is today, like a dam bursting. Seawater poured into the basin with the force of 200 Niagara Falls, raising the water level six inches each day and sending the human settlers scurrying to the hills. The story of the Great Flood was told and retold, eventually in Genesis: In the six hundredth year of Noahs life... the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.

Did Noahs Flood really happen this way and in this place? Some people think it did. In August, underwater explorer Robert Ballard intends to put this theory to the test. To do it, the 60-year-old Connecticut-based geologistbetter known for his elaborately publicized ship-hunting escapades, including the discovery of the Titanic in 1985is going to have to push the state of deep-sea technology. Hes designed a remotely piloted submersible, Hercules, which he claims can excavate for signs of human civilization at depths of 300 meters with a precision approaching what archeologists can muster with human hands.

Along those same lines...I was raised Catholic. Isn't the basic problem that Fundementalists have with Caholics that they (We, I guess...Even though I don't practice anymore) don't read the bible? (I've seen some bashing of Catholics on this forum and for the life of me, can't figure-out what the problem is).

As for dinousaurs...Well...

They didn't exist at the same time as the animals that were suposed to be on the Ark. (Of course I worked with a guy who was some kind of Christian where they believe EVERYTHING in the bible LITERALLY: God created the world in six, 24 hour days, etc.....And he said the dinosaurs were just "Giant Animals". He said since some people in the new testement lived to be 500? years, animals lived a long time too...And just got REALLY big. Of course I never asked him why people didn't become giants too).

Anyway...All that's open for discussion if you, or anyone is interested...

Thanks for all that. It isn't necessary to read the Bible to be a Roman Catholic; and even if one does, one is only allowed to see what the Roman Catholic church decrees is there. Dozens and dozens and dozens of conversations confirm that statement, though apolgists will formally deny it.

The brief response to the rest is that yes, if you don't believe Jesus was a deluded liar or a charlatan, you come around to seeing the OT as eyewitness account from an unerring source: God. As with everything, the central issue is Jesus.

Start with that premise, and the phenomena of geology with the resultant timeline are seen differently. Whereas someone who assumes a uniformitarian approach would say a stratum is old because it has old fossils, and the fossils are old because they're in an old stratum (see the pretty circle?), another with another assumption would see it differently.

The much shorter answer is that I'm not at all sure that dinosaurs, which there is reason to believe existed alongside men, weren't on the ark.

BTW, that was a joke! LOL, how should I know? There were representatives of all the "kinds," and Noah had 120 years to complete all the preparations, which were aided by the same God who "hard-wires" migratory patterns (Genesis 6:3; 7:9).

Dan(c8

31
posted on 07/23/2003 8:31:33 AM PDT
by BibChr
("...behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom is in them?" [Jer. 8:9])

Here is what I do not understand regarding the insistence on the literal, historical and geological veracity of the Genesis story of the Great Flood: why is it NECESSARY to insist on its literal, historical and geological veracity?

Would it not be more in keeping with the theological objectives of the Hebrew Scriptures (as a commentary on the relationship between humans and G-D) to focus first and foremost on the theological message of the Genesis account of the Great Flood? And in so doing, one would note that there are other stories of the Great Flood from ancient Sumeria and Babylon; and one would note that the Genesis account deliberately borrows the main story line from the Flood story that featured Utnapishtim, but also deliberately re-casts the story to reflect theological convictions of Ancient Israel.

See, for example, what Nahum Sarna says about the Genesis Flood story in his book, Understanding Genesis. In this approach, attention to the literary character of the story leads to a greater appreciation of its theological message.

So my question is: what can an insistence on the literal, historical and geological veracity of the Flood Story ADD?

Just one more thought, to be more precise: if a literary approach gets to the theological truth of the Flood story, what MORE can be added by insisting on its historical, literal, and geological veracity?

Thanks for all that. It isn't necessary to read the Bible to be a Roman Catholic; and even if one does, one is only allowed to see what the Roman Catholic church decrees is there. Dozens and dozens and dozens of conversations confirm that statement, though apolgists will formally deny it.

So I guess that's the basic problem "Christans" have with "Catholics"? Catholics pick and chose what they want to believe and preach? (And also, don't Christians have a problem with Catholics worshiping statues and stuff?)

Can't tell you anything about "G-D," to me that's only an abbreviation for a blasphemy.

As to the rest, I'm quite familiar with the argument. We could have a long friendly chat, but the bottom-line answer is fairly simple.

The reason why Christians "insist" on such things is that God's revelation is framed in history as well as words, and the words reveal the history (Hebrews 1:1, 2).

In other words, quite literally from Genesis to Revelation, God (A) DOES NOT reveal Himself by means of a series of high-flown apothegms and theoretical musings, but by starkest contrast (B) DOES elect to reveal Himself in words and deeds done in this year, in this kingdom, in this city, by this river, to this person with this name. There simply is no getting around it.

And Jesus affirms this very approach to both Old (retrospectively) and New (prospectively) Testaments.

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